Ireland 1603-1702, Society and History

By Desmond Keenan

This book deals with Irish society and history at a turning point. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Irish society was just had it always had been from time immemorial. It was not a state but a collection of warring states. Even that statement is not quite accurate for there were warring statelets within the warring states. The attempts by the kings of England from the twelfth century onwards to impose law and order had been little more successful than the attempts of various Irish chiefs before them to establish a single kingdom in Ireland. Yet the endeavours of the English kings were not without some improvements. They managed, chiefly in the eastern half of the island, to bring in improvements.

By the end of the 16th century a Government had been established with a system of central administration based on Dublin and local government and administration based on shires or counties under sheriffs. Ireland might have developed into a centrally-managed state with regular parliaments and systems of courts, as the old ways were abandoned and forgotten. Unfortunaately, a civil war broke out in England which became mirrored in Ireland. In Ireland, in addition, the civil disputes between the king and the English Parliament were complicated by religious disputes. Ireland became polarized on sectarian lines. Though a peace of sorts was established after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the sectarian struggle broke out again, at the end of the century. Both sides sought the help of foreign armies, and the Protestant armies proved victorious. The Catholics paid the inevitable penalty. This might have been confined to the history books, if the Catholics, largely financed from the United States, in the 19th century tried to recover their dominance through political and violent means.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479779215

Desmond Keenan

The author was born in Ireland, studied economics and sociology at The Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He completed a doctoral thesis on the Catholic Church in Ireland in the early nineteenth century. Afterwards, he continued his research in the British Library and British Newspaper Library, London (UK).

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IRELAND 1603 TO 1702, SOCIETY AND HISTORY

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Desmond Keenan

Copyright © 2013 by Desmond Keenan.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013900857

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Hardcover   978-1-4797-7920-8

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CONTENTS

Introduction

PART I

Chapter One-Europe and England in the Seventeenth Century

The Seventeenth Century as a Turning Point

The European Powers

Religion in the seventeenth Century: The Catholics

Religion in the seventeenth Century: The Protestants

The Rise of France, the Thirty Years’ War, the Repulse of the Turks,

Britain and Europe: the Royal Marriages.

England in 1603

The Religious Questions

England: Population and Economy

Scotland

Chapter Two-England in the Seventeenth Century; the Kings

James I 1603-1625

Charles I 1625-1649

The Inter-regnum or Commonwealth (1649-1660)

The Restoration 1660-1685

James II 1685-1688

William and Mary 1688-1694. William III 1694-1701

Chapter Three-Ireland: The Country and the Economy I

Ireland in 1603: General Aspects

The Economy in General

Climate

The People and their Lifestyle

Primary Sector

Weights and Measures

Landholding in Gaelic Areas

Landholding and Tenure in Common Law

Agriculture

Chapter Four-Ireland: The Country and the Economy II

Secondary Sector

Industry

Processes and Manufactures

The Tertiary Sector

The Financial System

Chapter Five-The Government

Central Government

Structure

The Government of Ireland

The Lord Lieutenant or Lord Deputy

The Irish Parliament

The Royal Courts

Government Finances

Policies

Plantations

The Post Office

Local Government

Structure

Shires, Liberties and Baronies

Gaelic Lordships and Petty Chiefs

Cities and Towns

Manors and parishes

Presidencies, Councils and Governorships

The Care of the Poor and the Sick

Chapter Six-The Legal System

Laws

Central or Royal Courts

Prerogative Courts

Assize Courts

Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts

Personnel of the Courts

Shire and Liberty Courts

Local or Manorial Courts

Town Courts

Crime and Punishment

Chapter Seven-The Armed Forces

Warfare

Effects of War

Chapter Eight-Religious Affairs

Royal Policy regarding Religion

Catholic Religious Practice

The Catholic Laymen

The Catholic Clergy

The Established Church

Puritans and Dissenters

Personal Religion

Chapter Nine-Cultural Activities

Education

Primary

Secondary

Female education

Tertiary

Health and Medicine

Science and Knowledge

Modern Science

Irish History and Antiquities

Chapter Ten-Changing Lifestyles

General

Popular Beliefs, Customs, and Superstitions

Leisure Activities

Art and Architecture

Literature and Theatre

Music

Recreations

Women

PART II

Chapter Eleven-James I 1603 to 1625

Ireland in 1603

Religion in the Seventeenth Century

Mountjoy, Lord Deputy 1600-1603, Lord Lieutenant 1603, Sir George Cary, Lord Deputy 1603-4, Sir Arthur Chichester Lord Deputy 1604-1616

The Initial Settlement

The Plantation of Ulster

The Struggle for Parliament

Sir Oliver St John, Lord Deputy 1616 to 1622

Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland, Lord Deputy 1622-1629

Chapter Twelve-Charles I 1625 to 1643

Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland, Lord Deputy 1622-1629

Adam Loftus and Richard Boyle Lords Justices 1629 to 1633

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, Lord Deputy 1632 to 1640. Lord Lieutenant 1640

Lord Dillon, Sir William Parsons, and Sir John Borlase, Lords Justices; Christopher Wandesford, Lord Deputy 1640; Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, Lord Lieutenant 1641-1643; Sir William Parsons and Sir Henry Tichborne, Lords Justices May to December 1643

Ireland in 1641

Plots and Alleged Plots

Outbreak in Ulster

Outbreak in Leinster

Outbreak in Munster

Outbreak in Connaught

Summary

The Response of the Government

January to October 1642

The Confederation of Kilkenny 24 October 1642

The Provinces 1643

The Cessation

Chapter Thirteen-Charles I 1644 to 1649

Ormonde Lord Lieutenant January 1644

1644

1645

1646

1647

1648

Chapter Fourteen-The Commonwealth 1649 to 1660

1649

Cromwell in Ireland

1650

1651

1652

1653

The Protectorate 1653-58

End of the Protectorate

1660-1

Chapter Fifteen-The Restoration Monarchy 1661 to 1685

Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant 1661 to 1669

Lord Robartes, May 1669 to February 1670

Lord Berkeley of Stratton, February 1670 to February 1672

Essex, Lord Lieutenant, February 1672 to April 1677

Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant 1677 to 1685

Chapter Sixteen-James II 1685 to 1691

Lords Justices: 24 February to December 1685

The Earl of Clarendon: 1 October 1685 to January 1687

The Earl of Tyrconnell (Lord Deputy): 8 January 1687

James in Ireland March 1689 to July 1690

The Battle of the Boyne, 1 July 1690 and its Aftermath

Ginckel in Ireland August 1690 to October 1691

Chapter Seventeen-William III 1690 to 1702

Lords Justices 1690-1692, Lord Sidney, Sir Charles Porter, and Thomas Coningsby

Henry Sidney, Lord Lieutenant 1692-3

Henry Capel, Lord Deputy, May 1695 to May 1696

Earl of Galway, Lord Justice May 1697 to December 1700

The Earl of Galway

The Woollen Industry

Independence of Irish Parliament asserted

Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, Lord Lieutenant 1700 to 1703

State of country at the End of the Century

Bibliography

Dedication

Nullius Addictus Jurare in Verba Magistri It translates to: Accustomed to swear in the words of no master.

To my long dead parents and the aunts and uncle, especially my uncle John McDermott and my special aunt Katie McDermott, who did their very best to make my childhood a happy one.

INTRODUCTION

There is probably no period in English and Irish history where the narrative became so distorted than in the 17th century. Episodes are selected and evidence is selected to prove or reinforce the perspective of the author. In England, there were those who favoured the Roundheads and those who favoured the Cavaliers. The Puritans were regarded as righteous, dull, excessively religions and directed by Independent ministers. Cavaliers were depicted as cheerful roisterers who might be scoundrels but were better than the preachers. All wars allow those with extremist views to flourish, and this was as true in England as in Ireland. Yet the English civil wars were not primarily religious wars. They started when the king decided to crush the parliamentarians in the Long Parliament by force. Yet what they were seeking was some constitutional limit on royal absolutism similar to the agreement reached by a later parliament with William III. The parliamentarians were lucky in that there emerged a man who was not only a great military leader but also a man of moderation by the standards of the time. One thing Cromwell wished to establish in Ireland was the establishment of a free, cheap, and impartial administration for the common people (DNB, Cromwell). From these words we can infer that the administration of justice in the Common Law courts was no better than it had been in the Brehon Law courts. The Instrument of Government showed what the Parliamentarians thought proper government should look like.

People have been conditioned by two centuries of anti-British propaganda that their automatic assumption that England must always be in the wrong. This view was strengthened after the Second World War with unrelenting anti-colonialist propaganda. There were supposed to be good, law-abiding, industrious peoples whose lands were taken and ‘exploited’ by white foreigners. Yet when we actually study the history of 17th century Ireland we find for the most part that the English were the ‘good guys’, the people who tried to end exploitation, to introduce industry, to end violence, to bring in the rule of law, and indeed what they regarded as reformed Christianity. This is true not only of the first governors from Lord Mountjoy onwards, but also of the Cromwellians. There was more to the Protectorate than banning Christmas. It is important to examine what exactly the governors were trying to do, and the conditions in which they were doing it. It was not all about persecuting Catholics.

Regarding Irish history, the Ireland of the twentieth or twenty first centuries was projected backward into the seventeenth. The outlooks, the political ambitions, the beliefs, the structures of a later age are uncritically assumed to have been present in the earlier age. Motives were attributed to the leaders of the time, malicious in the case of people the author did not favour and benign for those on the side he favoured. Whole categories of people were lumped together, for example on the basis of their religion, even though that might have been the only thing they had in common. Motives were attributed freely, especially to Cromwell and the Parliamentarians. But both of these, in their own eyes, were doing their best for Ireland. Getting rid of selfish, oppressive and warlike chiefs who battened on the poor, and superstitious Roman priests who wilfully concealed true religion could only be good for the common people.

It is unfortunate that the man who did most to shape history-writing in Ireland, and modern Irish society itself, used religion as the basis for his own electoral success. It was Daniel O’Connell. He posed as a champion of Catholics against the Protestants. For him the Protestants, not the English were the enemy. He never appealed even to moderate Protestants for their vote. His rhetoric was nakedly sectarian. Catholic Emancipation was won by a coalition of liberally-minded Protestant and Catholics. For them O’Connell was an embarrassment for he antagonised the undecided Protestants and strengthened Protestant antagonism to Emancipation. He had immense support among Catholics because in a democratic society in an independent Ireland the Catholics would have complete charge of all political corruption. (This aim was eventually achieved, but at the expense of partitioning Ireland, with the Catholics in charge of the corruption in one part and the Protestants in the other.)

In the 19th and 20th centuries it became a dogma among nationalists that England had conquered Ireland in the 12th century, and that the history of Ireland from that time was the history of struggles for freedom. But throughout the 17th century the sovereign rights of the king of England were respected, and there was never a question of declaring independence. The only people to throw off the authority of the king were a group of Parliamentarians who became known as the regicides. Their experiment in establishing a republic or commonwealth lasted just 11 Years. It is necessary too to examine the intentions and policies of the Parliamentarians. Romantic nationalism depicted them as evil men intent on destroying the Catholic religion and the Catholic people of Ireland. This view is summed up in the phrase, ‘To hell or to Connaught’ allegedly spoken by Cromwell. In fact the Commonwealth policy on plantations was in line with royal policy dating back to the reign of Mary Tudor.

The Irish wars in the 17th century were not about religion but about land and power. In the struggles over religion, the Catholic clergy, in many cases ignorant, lazy and dissolute, won the struggle with the Protestant clergy who often were not much better. But the real fight was over land and power. The Gaelic chiefs were gamblers and always willing to put their estates to the hazard of battle. If you were lucky you made some gains; if you were unlucky you might suffer temporary loss of income. If you lost you did not complain even if you had to spend the rest of your life fighting on the Continent. Most of the time you had sport and kept your followers content with the excitement of plunder and rape. It was later Romantic writers who lamented their losses. It was an article of faith among nationalist writers that all Irish men and women were saints, devoted only to the cause of their nation and religion. Kernes, or rapparees, or tories were in fact a plague in Irish society, and there could never be peace or prosperity while they remained in the land. But they formed the base of the power of all chiefs. The over-riding concern of the chiefs was to get back their confiscated lands. The forfeited lands were not necessarily extensive but they provided the support for warlike families who disdained work. It was not a democratic age, and nobody was concerned about what the common people might want.

‘New English’ referred to English-speakers who had come to Ireland from England since the Reformation and were almost exclusively Protestants. They were not a homogeneous group, the English and the Scots in Ulster having different traditions and loyalties from those in the rest of Ireland: religion was their common bond. The term ‘Old English’ refers to an ethnically mixed group who may originally have spoken French but who now spoke English. These had intermarried with the local people. Many were urban dwellers, were engaged in trade, lived under Common Law and remained mostly Catholic. The ‘mere’ (pure) Irish were those chiefly families who were in Ireland before the Norman invasion. They were either bi-lingual but some may have spoken only Gaelic. These families had been intermarrying with the Old English since the 12th century.

I was born in 1933 the year after Fianna Fail under Éamon de Valera took office in the parliament of the Irish Free State. It was 12 years after the ‘treaty’ granting more of less dominion status to the Catholic part of Ireland. All our family were great supporters of de Valera. My uncle, John McDermott had been in Sinn Féin, the political branch of the IRA and in the IRA itself. He left the latter when fighting broke out between factions in the IRA over the acceptance of the ‘treaty’. My parents and all their generation remembered all the events which had occurred 12 or 15 years earlier. During all my childhood I was surrounded by the propaganda and ideology of Sinn Féin and the IRA and it never occurred to me to doubt it. All the Catholic schools I attended reinforced the same message.

It was not until I began to undertake research of my own that I began to question the version of Irish history I had been taught. I came to the realization the bloody ‘Land War’ in the 1880’s was not a spontaneous reaction of down-trodden peasants against the exactions of oppressive landlords. The landlords were not oppressive, and the tenant farmers were mostly content. On the other hand, the campaign was manufactured by corrupt Irish politicians, the blood brothers of the Irishmen in Tammany Hall, and largely financed by Tammany Hall. Never afterwards would I accept the judgment of an Irish historian without testing it. First was to suspect any historian who used anachronistic terms like ‘anti-colonial struggle’. That was a sign of sloppy thinking, perhaps of bias, perhaps a failure to determine the meaning of words at an earlier period, perhaps a failure to adequately read, study, and interpret the documents of the period. For example if Hugh O’Neill writes an impassioned plea for all Catholic Irishmen to assist the Catholic Church, was it written by himself, or by his chaplain who had an eye of the archbishopric of Armagh? Was O’Neill a sincere religious man or merely trying to get gold from the Vatican to support his armies? These things a historian must try to evaluate and not merely to accept documents that fit his own theories. Was his opponent, Sir John Davies a more sincerely religious man than O’Neill? If so what are the implications for the writer of the history of the 17th century?

Some popular writings still reflect the rosy-tinted Romantic view that all Irish men and women were saintly figures, sacrificing themselves for their religion and country. It was however astonishing to find that Hugh Roe O’Donnell was being proposed as a candidate for sainthood (Wikipedia, ‘Hugh Roe O’Donnell’). But even some professional historians may exhibit an undue leniency when judging Irishmen and an undue severity when speaking of Englishmen. The fact is that the Gaelic chiefs were warlords who had no care for anything but their own personal aggrandisement. (When researching this book I came across a website which suggested that it would be an irenic gesture for the Irish Government to replace the statue of King William destroyed by the Republicans. Indeed it would. But the reaction it provoked showed that the ideology of Republicanism is still as strong in Ireland as Nazism ever was in Germany or Bolshevism in Russia. Yet these latter two are gone.)

A large part of Irish backwardness in the 17th century can be attributed to the fact that never in the Middle Ages was Ireland united under a single ruler. Gaelic chiefs and Norman lords pursued their own aims totally disregarding any national interest. It did not matter whether the ruler was of Gaelic, Norman, or mixed stock or English. There never developed a national sense of identity or a national government. There was no central administration or tax collection. There was no national army. There were no national policies for example on the development of fisheries or exports. There was no national fleet to defend and advance national policies. All interests were local. All disputes were between chiefs and lords. With Ireland in the 17th century finally united under a single ruler, the Government, especially under Wentworth and Ormonde did try to develop national policies, but by then it was too late. The other European states were developing their own national policies and were in a better position to defend their own interests. (Strictly speaking the titles were earl of Ormond, and Marquis of Ormonde, and Duke of Ormonde. I have used Ormonde throughout.)

A problem which arises from the traditional Celtic/Catholic Anglo-Saxon/Protestant dichotomy is that from the arrival of the Vikings, Normans, and English intermarriage was the norm. Normally far more men than women went abroad on ships whether as warriors, traders or settlers and these would take local wives. Their leaders especially were anxious to marry into the local princely families for all warfare was based on alliances. Between 1200 and 1500 the ruling classes in all parts of Ireland were of mixed race. In Ireland as in England the ruling class abandoned Norman French for the vernacular. In the more heavily colonised eastern parts this was English while in the more western parts this was Gaelic. The difference between the cultures was minimal. Gaelic chiefs adopted all the elements of English culture that suited themselves and rejected those that did not. There never was a question of a stubborn defence of a Gaelic culture.

The treatment of the Cromwellian period in Ireland was the most likely to be distorted by the expectations of the readership. Two books I quote have remarkably contrasting styles, That by the journalist, Sean O’Callaghan (2000) To Hell or Barbados, appeals to the traditional Irish and American Catholic markets, stressing the cruelty of the English Puritans to the poor suffering Irish Catholics who only fault was trying to free their country from oppression. No other points of view are even considered. On the other hand the professional historian Michael Ó Siochrú, God’s Executioner (2008) is much more balanced and reliable, giving facts rather than heart-wrenching rhetoric. To give a single example, in O’Callaghan’s account of the rounding up of Irish women and girls to send them to Barbados it is assumed that they are gently-reared and unused to harsh treatment. Yet in accounts in the following century Irish men and women are often described as drunken and brawling and the Irish women noted for their prowess as bare-breasted, bare-knuckled prize fighters. Then again, by the 19th century, Irish women were noted for their chastity. It is inadvisable to assume that conditions were the same in different centuries. In this century, as in other centuries, the English administrators were of more benefit to Ireland and its people than the local lords and chiefs.

I believe that chronology is the backbone of history, and that events should be presented in chronological order, and not as a series of ‘themes’. Chronology can only be carried so far, especially when several different events were occurring at the same time. This was usually the case in the four Irish provinces. I have therefore gathered the event in a single Governorship, Lord Lieutenant, Lord Deputy, or Lord Justice to indicate the problems in the various parts of Ireland he had to deal with. In an age of much slower communications a victory or defeat in one part of Ireland might not affect events in other parts of Ireland for several months.

Finally, in the 17th century we are given glimpses of the common people. Foreign observers, when describing ‘the Irish’ give accounts of people in their own class, people into whose houses they were invited, and with whom they dined. These were people who were their own social equals. They did not describe the servants or the farm hands. Such people were regarded as part of the furniture. You are more likely to be given descriptions of a gentleman’s horses than of his horseboys. But finally in the 17th century we are given descriptions of the poorer classes, not many but they are there. By the 1830s we have whole books describing the living conditions of the poorer classes.

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

Europe and England in the Seventeenth Century

The Seventeenth Century as a Turning Point

For the purpose of the historian, the year 1600 or the year 1603 marks the end of one era and t he beginning of another even though 1601 was little different from 1600 and 1604 from 1603. Yet for the whole of Europe, the 17th century was very different from the 16th century. The 16th century, for all its great changes, in a way, marked the end of the Middle Ages which be considered to have commenced around the year 1000 A. D. The 17th century, though building on the achievements of the preceding century as in religion, navigation, exploration, and printing marks the development of the modern world when Europe led the world in warfare, science, manufacture and trade, art, literature, music, medicine, and so on, until European countries conquered most of the planet and indelible planted their culture on all other societies. More and more men of the upper classes became literate, and spent some time at a university. The cleric in orders was no longer needed for public administration. A scientific revolution took place where conclusions were based on observations, and increasingly on accurate measurements, rather than on the authority of Aristotle, Ptolemy, or Galen (Coward, 71). Galileo is the best known of the astronomers. The telescope which was produced by lens grinder for spectacles and its reverse the microscope revolutionized science. Newton was outstanding among the mathematicians of the time, and his conclusions provided a firm base for science for centuries. The study of anatomy by Vesalius provided a similar base for the study of medicine. Napier’s logarithms formed a base for calculations for centuries and the slide rule based on a logarithmic scale remained supreme for calculations until replaced by the computer.

For Ireland 1603 was an even more important turning point. In that year it may be said that the Dark Ages ended and the Modern Age began. In the 12th century, Ireland began to catch up with the developments and improvements which followed the ending of the Dark Ages in Western Europe which can be dated at around 1000 A. D. The changes which were taking place accelerated with the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in 1170 and there was no reason to assume that Ireland would not continue to develop like the rest of Western Europe, though usually about a century behind the leaders. Yet in the later Middle Ages the process of development in Ireland went into reverse. This was clearly marked by the reversion of the monasteries to the state they were in during the worst centuries of the Dark Ages. Politically, Ireland consisted of about a hundred warring factions whose most cherished right was to be able to make war on any of their neighbours for any cause they themselves considered sufficient. Conditions in the 16th century were no better than at the height of the Viking attacks. In the fields of religion, art, and culture, Ireland in the 16th century produced almost nothing of value.

It was a tragedy, for if any three of the most powerful lords had agreed to establish a strong Irish government they could have done so, whether they were Gaelic or English-speakers. But the three great earls were bent on ruining each other, and none of the Gaelic chiefs trusted any other. The chief reason why there was no concerted attack on the English crown was that nobody would agree who should replace him.

An opportunity arose in Ireland in the 17th century such as had arisen in England in the 11th century, In England, William of Normandy confiscated the lands of the Anglo-Saxon lords who failed to make prompt and whole-hearted submission after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and distributed them among those who had followed him from Normandy precisely for that purpose. In Ireland, three different revolts, one at the end of Elizabeth’s reign, one under Charles I and Cromwell, and the third under James II, gave grounds for confiscation of the lands of the great lords and chiefs and distribution to the followers of the victors. Far from being a disaster, the confiscation of the lands of the warlords and their distribution to men from outside Ireland who had commercial skills proved of great benefit to Ireland. (Catholics who followed O’Connell’s views regarded it of course as a disaster, but it is not for the historian to adjudicate on the merits of either the Catholic or Protestant religion.) It may be said that from the year 1603 Ireland began her climb to become one of the most advanced manufacturing countries in the world on the eve of the First World War. The Titanic was its culminating achievement, not merely the hull and the engines, but the rooms fitted out to the highest standards of London or Paris by the craftsmen of Belfast.

The European Powers

The musket, the bayonet and the cannon were now the equipment of all armies. The great military events of the 17th century were the Thirty Years’ War which wracked Central Europe from 1618 until 1648 and the attempt by a coalition of rulers to curb the military might of France at the end of the century.

The Thirty Years’ War was caused by the attempt of the Holy Roman Emperor to restore the Catholic religion in northern Europe by force. It ended in a stalemate with the northern states of Germany remaining Protestant and the southern states remaining Catholic. They were saved only by the power of Sweden under Gustav Adolph of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus. (It should be remembered that the Protestant states were poor, backward, and isolated. Protestantism did not become the world wide force it was later to become with the growth of the British Empire, the rise of Prussia, and the enormous expansion of the United States.)

The religious wars in France had been dampened down when the Protestant Henry of Navarre changed his religion to become Henry IV of France and issued an edict of toleration, the Edict of Nantes in 1598. It was revoked by his grandson Louis XIV in 1685. During the first half of the century France had been ruled by two powerful ministers, Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin, who held much the same position as Cardinal Wolsey had held in England before the Reformation. Louis XIV, Sun King, le Roi-Soleil, was probably the greatest king ever to sit on the throne of France, and he gave to France the position in Europe that its size, its population, its manufactures, and its wealth warranted (Davis, 212). Though the population of France was large, because of the fragmentation of landholding and low agricultural productivity, the average income of the peasants was small. A series of bad harvests could lead to widespread famines, as happened in the closing years of Louis’s reign. His attempts to extend the boundaries of France by military means led to a series of coalitions against France that did not end until 1815 with the defeat of Napoleon. (The French in the 19th century, like the British, were to develop a vast overseas empire, but that is a different story). The anti-French wars reached their culmination at the beginning of the next century in the War of the Spanish Succession when a Grand Alliance tried successfully to block the plan of Louis XIV for the unification of the crowns of France and Spain. When Louis XIV finally died in 1715 after 55 years of absolute personal rule France was bankrupt and wasted by famine.

At the beginning of the 17th Century Spain had reached the culmination of its power and thereafter for various reasons went into relative decline. It remained however a powerful military, industrial, trading, and colonial power. During the Napoleonic Wars it was still producing some of the largest and most powerful battleships in Europe. In the 17th century it controlled the entire Iberian Peninsula, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily, and all of southern Italy below the Papal States. It also governed and controlled most of southern North America from California to Florida, Mexico, all of South America except Brazil, and islands in the Pacific reaching as far as the Philippines. After the deaths of Elizabeth I of England and Philip II of Spain the new monarchs, James I or Philip III had little interest in prolonging the war between the two nations. By the peace treaty Spain agreed to send no more troops, arms or gold to rebels in Ireland, nor to welcome or assist any Irish chief who fled to Spain. Largely because of this Ireland enjoyed 40 years of peace.

When Spain absorbed Portugal, it acquired the immensely rich Portuguese trading stations from the coasts of Brazil, around west, south, and east Africa, various places on the coasts of India, and Ceylon, the Spice Islands, (which were to become the Dutch East Indies, Indonesia), and as far as the coasts of China. The Portuguese contented themselves with constructing well-defended trading stations on the coasts, (manned by half-castes for Portuguese women rarely went there) and controlling the carrying trade. Macau, on the coast of China, remained in Portuguese hands, the last European colony in China until 1999. The population of Portugal was too small to do more initially to control coastal settlements. The most successful colony was Brazil which gained its independence in 1822 at a time when Britain and the United States were promoting independence movements in the Spanish colonies. Angola and Mozambique remained under Portuguese control until the second half of the 20th century. Portugal was too small and too poor to conquer and develop the vast areas her sailors had discovered. In 1580, Philip II of Spain took advantage of a succession dispute in Portugal to establish himself as King of Portugal. This union ended in 1640.

The third great military power was the Moslem Ottoman Empire based on Constantinople (modern Istanbul). It was in its final expansion phase. It controlled the Turkish-speaking provinces of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) where most Turkish immigration had taken place. It also controlled almost all the Arabic-speaking provinces of the old Caliphate, including Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the states along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Most of the now independent Arabic-speaking states were originally Turkish provinces. After its naval defeat at Lepanto in 1570 attempts to control the western Mediterranean came to an end. The Ottoman advance into Eastern Europe through the Balkans continued steadily and the Turkish army reached the gates of Vienna in 1683. If Vienna were to fall there was no major obstacle to Turkish expansion before the Rhine. The Turks were defeated by the united Austrian and Polish forces under the King of Poland, John III Sobieski. From then on the Ottoman Empire was in a slow retreat especially before the rising power of Russia. (It was ironic that in the 19th century France and Britain intervened in the Crimea to save Turkey from the Russians.)

The fourth military power was the Holy Roman Empire which had some sort of power over the multitude of states, great and small, in the German-speaking part of Europe. All these states, like the Gaelic chiefs in Ireland, guarded their independence, and above all their sovereign right to make war. Some states like the Duchy of Bavaria became separate kingdoms and even after the unification of Germany under Bismarck retained a separate court and army. (In the 20th century, the papal representative in German, the papal nuncio was accredited to the court of Bavaria.) As a military power it was dependent on the ability of the emperor, normally the ruler of the largest state, to persuade or enforce co-operation. Usually, at this period, the archdukes of Austria were elected as emperors, and they could normally manage to put formidable armies into the field. The Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Hapsburgs, which succeeded the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 with its capital in Vienna, controlled a heterogeneous collection of peoples in south eastern Europe; itself came to an end in 1918, leaving only modern Austria with its capital Vienna.

The Holy Roman Emperor was elected by a college of the greatest rulers in Germany, three archbishops and four secular princes. A papal Bull of 1356 resolved the disputes among the electors; under it, the Archbishops of Mainz,  and Cologne, as well as the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg held the right to elect the Emperor. In 1692 the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who became known as the Elector of Hanover, was added. Elizabeth of Scotland, the eldest daughter of James the VI and I married the Count Palatine Elector in 1613. Their daughter, Sophia, in 1658 married Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and is commonly but informally known as the Electress of Hanover. As all Catholics by 1714 were excluded from the throne of Britain, the long-lived Electress Sophia, as a grand-daughter of James I became the closest heir. As she died shortly before Queen Anne it was her son, George of Hanover who succeeded as George I.

The secondary powers were Portugal (initially), the United Provinces of Holland, England, Sweden, and Poland. The sudden growth to power and influence of the impoverished and backward provinces of the Spanish Netherlands which were to be called The Netherlands or Holland is quite astonishing. The revolt against Spain was over the question of religion. The rich and highly-skilled provinces of the south around Antwerp remained under Spanish control. Antwerp was itself the greatest manufacturing and trading port in North West Europe. The Catholic provinces were called the Spanish Netherlands, later the Austrian Netherlands, and finally Belgium.

In 1609 Philip III of Spain signed a twelve-year truce with the United Provinces which meant the end of the war, even if formal recognition of The Netherlands had to wait until 1648. The southern provinces remained under Spanish rule. The Dutch however controlled the entrance to the Scheldt and so were able to strangle the trade of Antwerp and direct it towards their own ports at the entrance to the Rhine. The Protestant Netherlands was at least free from foreign control and could take care of its own affairs. They were helped by an immigration of skilled workers and artists from the Spanish-controlled provinces. A great school of secular art developed very different from the religious art of the Flemish school. Freedom of thought and expression was allowed. The study of navigation and the instruments of navigation were taken seriously. The invention of the telescope is attributed to Dutch lens grinders who made spectacles. (The telescope was simply a tube with different lenses at either end.) Though crude, a telescope made by Galileo revolutionised astronomy. The Dutch largely controlled the rich fisheries in the North Sea. Their traders took over most of the carrying trade of North West Europe which led to direct conflict with the English, which was brought to an end when William of Orange, a Protestant, became king of Great Britain. They established, in direct rivalry with England, trading colonies in the Americas. One called New Amsterdam was established on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson. When captured by the English it was renamed New York, after the Catholic Duke of York, later James II. Their greatest success was in the Far East where they captured the trade of the Spice Islands from the Portuguese, and later conquered and colonised and unified the Dutch East Indies, later called Indonesia. On their way there they established a strong colony at the southern tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope, later captured by the British. Even more than Portugal, the population of Holland was too small to sustain massive emigration to their colonies. Like the English and French, the Dutch tried to establish colonies in the West Indies to break into its profitable trade but with little permanent success (Wilson, passim; Davis 176-193, 250-263; Maland, 321-351).

In the 17th century Sweden was turned from an impoverished and weak state into a great military power by its king Gustavus Adolphus. Early in the 16th century the Swedes, led by Gustavus Vasa, overthrew the rule of Denmark and established their own kingdom, and Gustavus was installed as Gustav I the first king of Sweden. The power of Sweden reached its peak early in the 18th century under Charles XII. The Swedes tried to rival the Dutch in the planting of colonies and developing an overseas trade. Though they planted several colonies in the Caribbean and on the west coast of Africa, they were unable to hold them. Their greatest influence was in the Thirty Years’ War in Germany where the Swedish intervention saved Protestantism in Northern Germany. Protestantism would have been confined to Britain, Scandinavia and Holland, and might not have survived (Maland, 380-402).

The Kingdom of Poland, too, came to its height in the 17th century, and its crowning achievement was driving back the Turks from the gates of Vienna. The Great European Plain, which stretches from the North Sea to the Ural Mountains has no natural boundaries, and here, more than in most places, the comment of Hilaire Belloc applies, that there is nothing more impermanent than lines on a map. Linguistically, the region is divided between Germanic speakers in the west and Slavic-speakers in the east. The German-speakers were in the uncertain grip of the Holy Roman Empire and its expansion eastward into Courland (later East Prussia). There was no central focus for the Slavic-speakers. Their first kingdom to emerge was the Kievan Rus, based on Kiev in the Ukraine. It was followed about the year 1000 by the Kingdom of Poland. Kiev adopted the Greek Orthodox religion, while Poland adopted the Western Catholic religion. Both spoke Slavic dialects. By the end of the 14th century the dominant power was Lithuania which adopted the Catholic religion, but spoke its own Indo-European language, Lithuanian. It controlled most of Poland and Kiev as far south as the Black Sea (Times Books, The Times History of Europe, London, 2001). By the 16th century a revived Polish monarchy had swallowed the Lithuanian kingdom but was prevented from reaching the Black Sea by the expanding Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile Muscovy around Moscow was swallowing up the rest of the territory west of the Urals, but was not yet a major military power, or even a European power. Peter the Great 1672-1725) set about remedying that. Poland however never managed to get a workable balance of power between the king and the great nobles, and so became progressively dismembered.

England was still a secondary power and the Stuarts were as little inclined as the parsimonious Elizabeth to spend money of wars. But as in Elizabeth’s time public opinion tried to get some engagement on the Protestant side on the Continent. It was not until the end of the century was it necessary to raise and equip large armies to fight on the Continent. The trade wars against the Dutch were fought largely at sea, though the kings were unwilling to devote much money to maintaining the fleet, nor were the people anxious to contribute to the cost. As in other things Cromwell was an exception, and after he died the old ways returned. Charles II did manage to appoint an efficient Secretary to the Navy and he managed to keep the ships from rotting as they were prone to do when tied up in harbour. Corruption was endemic in public life and ships could be repaired with rotten wood. Even in the time of Nelson this was still a problem. Charles II, mindful of his father’s problems, did not disband a few regiments at the restoration and laid the foundation of the present British Army. But it was for his personal protection, not that of the country. Military experience of Continental warfare was gained by volunteers, but as the fought on both sides, their effect was negligible (Barnett, 64).

Religion in the seventeenth Century:

The Catholics

These two sections deal just with the religious situation in Europe in general.

The seventeenth century was quite an astonishing one for the papacy. From the Renaissance onwards the high officers of the Church were patrons of the arts. In the seventeenth century the popes, cardinals and archbishops and lay lords in Rome seized the leadership in the patronage of the arts from the Italian merchant cities like Florence, Venice, Milan and Genoa. The new age, called the Baroque Age was centred on Rome. Baroque architecture spread across Italy, south Germany, Spain, Portugal and all their colonies, and was adopted in France (Mallard, 82 illustrations). Even Protestant England succumbed and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London was built in the Baroque style. Ostentation, later called Triumphalism, marked the religious ceremonies and the furnishing of churches.

In the Catholic Church, the various reforms had been determined on by the Council of Trent in the previous century. The offices of the Roman Curia were reorganised and purged to make attempts to bribe the officials more difficult. The government of the churches was placed firmly in the hands of the bishops, who were also given the responsibility for training priests. The Jesuits and the reformed religious orders set examples of how the Christian life should be led. Perhaps more important in the longer term was the work of Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-1657), an exemplar of the French school of spirituality. He was pastor of the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris in 1642 for the purpose of educating priests. He founded the Society of St. Sulpice. The French School of Spirituality was the principal devotional influence within the Catholic Church from the mid 17th Century through the mid 20th Century not only in France but throughout the Church in most of the world. The focus of Catholic spirituality and moral life was founded on a personal and interior devotion to Jesus and it was shared by priests and lay persons alike. Another influential spiritual leader was St Francis de Sales whose Introduction to a Devout Life was written for lay people, and was second only to The Imitation of Christ in its influence. St Vincent de Paul founder a congregation of priest called Larzarists or Vincentians. The special objects contemplated were the religious instruction of the lower classes, the training of the clergy and foreign missions. The missions Vincent envisaged, like St Alphonsus Ligouri, a century later were originally to the rural poor, but they soon branched out into missionary work in pagan countries. Better known was his congregation of women, the Daughters of Charity, who set new rules for orders of women by working outside the cloister in the homes of the poor. Most later orders of women were modelled on them. Despite the ‘particle of nobility’ in his name he was the son of a peasant farmer and was educated by Franciscan friars. Perhaps the greatest influence on personal devotion came from the revelations to St Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun in one of St Francis de Sales’ convents. From the revelations to her sprang the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Holy Hour, and the First Fridays, which came to characterize post-Tridentine Catholicism. Devotion to the Sacred Heart was promoted by the Jesuits. The most famous of the religious reformers is undoubtedly another French priest Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, the Abbé de Rancé, who reformed the monastery of La Trappe which in the 17th century was famous for the strictness of its rule. (An excellent account of the attempts to reform the Cistercian Order in France, and the opposition to such reform is to be found in Merton, 32-49).

It should be remembered that in all the major religious orders there were attempts at reform, but also there were within those orders great resistance to reform. And conflicts between the reform and anti-reform branches continued until the French Revolution when most monastic endowments which provided for a comfortable lifestyle were confiscated. Even within Ireland we may question which did more to preserve the Catholic faith, the stern reformers or the unreformed branches who survived on the generosity of the people, preached sermons, and said mass, gave absolution, and conducted funerals while making little other demands. In Merton’s book, life in unreformed Cistercian monastery was comfortable. The offices had to be chanted. But after that the monk had leisure to pray, meditate, read books, walk in the garden, receive visitors who could stay at the abbey for months, go on holidays for two months each year and have all the food and firewood he needed. As Merton says, it is easy to see why bourgeois families should choose such a life for less-talented sons. Or daughters he might have added (Merton, 36). No doubt many Dominican and Franciscan convents of both men and women had a similar lifestyle. Most people in Ireland were not concerned about the finer points of discipline and would pick the stern exacting Jesuit or the comfortable friar as the mood took them. And probably the friar got the better alms. The resistance to reform persisted in some Franciscan convents in Ireland up to the 1830s (Keenan, The Catholic Church, 144-6).

A great era of missionary endeavour commenced, as the various religious orders established themselves around the globe from Japan right back to the Philippines. The older orders like the Dominicans and Franciscans accompanied the ships of the Spanish and Portuguese, and they were followed by other orders like the Jesuits and Vincentians. Far from withering away and dying out the renewed Catholic Church saw itself, not only in the vanguard of the spread of the gospel, but a leader in all the arts, literature and sciences. The Protestant countries of northern Europe seemed to be backward-looking and inward-looking. It was not until the 19th century that Protestant missions developed. (Though seized on later by various people who wanted to attack the Catholic Church, the condemnation of Galileo was very nuanced, and if Galileo had continued working on his hypothesis as an hypothesis and published only in Latin, he would have saved himself much trouble (Catholic Encyclopaedia, Galileo.)

There were two other trends in the French Church which had a baneful influence abroad, Gallicanism, and Jansenism. Gallicanism was a development of the Conciliarism of the Middle Ages. It arose at a time when Popes and anti-Popes were contending, and developed into a belief that the authority of a General Council was superior to that of the Pope. Gallicanism tended to restrain the Pope’s authority in favour of that of bishops and the people’s representatives in the State, or the monarch. But the most respected proponents of Gallican ideas did not contest the Pope’s primacy in the Church, merely his supremacy and infallibility. Their views were contested by the Ultramontanes, those who supported the authority of the Pope. The views of the latter prevailed, and in the First Vatican Council in 1870 were declared to be the correct ones. The Jesuits were the great proponents of the Ultramontane views. As in most theological controversies much odium theologicum was generated, as rival theologians denounced each other of heresy. Gallicanism supported the views of the French king, Louis XIV, whose views on the relationship of the State to the Church were akin to those of Henry VIII of England. Gallicanism defended the supposed traditional freedoms of the French clergy vis-à-vis the Papacy while also denying the right of the Pope to intervene in French civil affairs

Jansenism was a theological theory regarding grace, similar to those of Calvinists and its attenuated version Arminianism. Jansenism was a doctrine primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. Jansenists held very strict views on morality, and Jansenist priests might refuse absolution to penitents if they did not consider them sufficiently repentant. An excessively strict view on morality apart from Jansenism is called Rigorism. The Jansenists tended to support the so-call traditional liberties of the French Church. Though mutually supporting, the two movements were very different.

At the same time and very much involved in the controversies was Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, abbot of La Trappe, who began a reform movement there in 1664, in reaction to the relaxation of practices in many Cistercian monasteries. Though the austerities of La Trappe were famous de Rancé was totally opposed to the Jansenists.

In the midst of its other troubles, these religious controversies were to rock the Irish Church in the 17th century after Archbishop Rinuccini excommunicated those who sought an accommodation with the king.

Religion in the seventeenth Century:

The Protestants

When Martin Luther claimed the right to interpret the Bible for himself it meant that others could interpret the Bible for themselves. This was to lead by the 20th century to a proliferation of tiny sects, all claiming to be the true Church. By the 17th century four great streams of Protestant churches had emerged, the Lutheran, the Calvinists, the Anabaptists, or Baptist, and the Anglican.

The Lutheran and the Anglican were the more conservative, preserving as much as possible of old practices as they regarded as consonant with the new beliefs. They both kept a hierarchy of bishops, and in both the boundaries of the church were those of the state. Usually the national churches were state churches. The usual method of determining orthodoxy was a synod of the nation. No method was ever devised of harmonizing different beliefs or accepting each other’s orders. Gradually it came about that Protestantism was defined or demarcated by their acceptance of three fundamental principles. The first is that the Bible is the sole source of Christian belief, excluding the traditions of the early Fathers of the Church, the authority of ecumenical councils, and the teaching authority of the Church. The second was justification by faith alone. The third was the universal priesthood of believers. Priests and bishops had no special powers. Any powers of governing a church by ministers only had the power and validity conferred on them by the members of the church. Any church which followed these principals was counted as being Protestant.

The most strictly rational of the Protestant reformers was John Calvin (Jean Calvin, born Jehan Cauvin: writers in the 17th century writing in Latin often gave a Latinized version of their name), whose Institutes of the Christian Religion proved very influential and gave rise to Calvinism. Taking literally Luther’s principle of justification by faith alone he rejected everything not derived directly from that principle. His theological speculations led him to the conclusion of the ‘eternal decree’, namely that from all eternity God had decreed who the ‘elect’ or ‘chosen’ were totally irrespective of how a man or woman led their lives. No human acts could alter this, though living a godly life, as defined by Calvinist preachers, might give an indication whether one was among the elect or not. These preachers taught an austere doctrine in which all amusements and recreations were forbidden. Reading was restricted to the Bible and books by Calvinist preachers. There was nothing a Church could do, so the Church had no power. Still less had the state or the crown. In the 17th century an attempt was made by a Dutch theologian Jakob Hermanszoon, usually known by the Latinized form of his name Jacobus Arminius to soften the rigour of Calvinism, and his teaching called Arminianism was very influential in England among Baptists, Congregationalists and later Methodists. The crux of Arminianism lay in the assertion that human dignity requires an unimpaired freedom of the will, some freedom to choose. Calvinism was introduced to Scotland by John Knox and became the dominant branch of Protestantism there. However strict Calvinists wished to hold fast to the Calvinist theories of predestination and the ‘Eternal Decree’ and treated Arminius as a heretic.

In England there developed two branches of Protestantism, the Anglican and the Puritan, which will be dealt with in a special section.

The Rise of France, the Thirty Years’ War,

the Repulse of the Turks,

Though strong, France in 1603 was not the dominating power it was to become later in the century. The first wars of religion in France ended when Henry of Navarre, a Protestant who turned Catholic in order to succeed to the throne of France and then issued the Edict of Nantes giving toleration the French Protestants, the Huguenots. Henry was assassinated in 1610, and was succeeded by his son, a minor, who became Louis XIII at the age of 10 and reigned from 1610 to 1643. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis’ minority. He took power into his own hands in 1617 and leaned heavily on his chief Minister, Cardinal Richelieu, to govern the Kingdom. They are remembered for putting an end to the revolt of the great feudal lords. France’s greatest victory in the war against the Habsburg Empire came at the Battle of Rocroi (1643), five days after Louis’s death. This battle marked the beginning of the end of Spain’s military ascendancy in Europe and foreshadowed French dominance in Europe under Louis XIV. Richelieu was an able administrator and did much to modernise France and to subject the feudal lords, especially the Huguenots, to the crown. Though a Catholic churchman he put the interests of France before those of the Catholic Church, notably when he sided with the Protestant powers in the Thirty Years’ War. Richelieu died in 1642 and Louis died in 1643, being succeeded by his five year old infant son, Louis XIV. Cardinal Mazarin succeeded Richelieu as Chief Minister and Louis’ queen, Anne of Austria acted as Regent of France. The regency and childhood of Louis were disturbed by the Wars of the Fronde, which made Louis determined finally to curb the feudal powers of the nobles, especially the Huguenots.

The various disturbances meant the France was not an effective power in Europe during the Thirty Years’ War which devastated central Europe between 1818 and 1648. Mazarin was succeeded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, an administrative and financial genius, who transformed the economy of France, even if his financial successes did not quite match up with Louis XIV’s spending plans. Louis too was served by some of the best generals in Europe. Most sovereigns in Europe were striving to impose royal absolutism with varying degrees of success. Louis was able to reduce the independence of the great feudal lords by making attendance at court virtually compulsory. (In England too personal appearance at the court of Charles II was essential for advancement in public life, though for various reasons Britain managed to stave off royal absolutism.) The success of France under Louis had the inevitable effect that the major powers of Europe from the Emperor and the Pope downwards eventually combined against him. Louis was anxious to gain control of the Church in France from the Pope. Despite the setbacks at the end of Louis reign, France remained the greatest military power in the world until the rise of Germany under Bismarck. (Britain, France and Germany were relegated to the ranks of second class military powers only after the Second World War; Austria after the First World War.)

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) was a confused series of conflicts in which England was rarely directly involved but it had indirect effects on Ireland. In the absence of a war in either England or Ireland the sons of noblemen, gentlemen and chiefs went abroad to find the occupation they could not find at home. Catholic gentlemen usually joined the French, Spanish, or Austrian armies and Protestants could join the Dutch, north German or Swedish armies. There was no bar, either of religion or nationality, provided you did fight against your own king. The result was that when civil wars broke out there were numerous experienced officers in the Three Kingdoms.

The principal struggle was between the Holy Roman Emperor, now invariable the Hapsburg Archduke of Austria, and the rebellious princes of North Germany, who were backed at different times by Sweden, the Protestants states of the Netherlands, and by France. The intervention of France on the Protestant side was to prevent the Austrians becoming too powerful, as they would have done if the unification of Germany under Austria had been successful. Ferdinand, the Archduke of Inner Austria, king of Bohemia, King of Hungary, Archduke of Austria, King of the Romans (German), and Holy Roman Emperor (1619-1637) on slightly different dates was like most monarchs of the time engaged in strengthening the personal powers of the monarch against those of the local lords and princes. He was also a strict Catholic intent on wiping out heresy, i.e. Protestantism, from his dominions. The war was never intended to last thirty years, but was sparked by in incident in Prague where the imperial regents were thrown out of a window by irate Protestants. This was an insult the King of Bohemia had to deal with. At first the imperial armies were successful and were well on their way to conquering and subduing the Protestant states, when Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, a brilliant military commander, drove back the imperial armies until he was killed in 1632. On his death, he was succeeded by his 6-year old daughter Cristina, and Cardinal Richelieu grasped the opportunity to put France at the head of the Protestant princes. The sack of Magdeburg in 1631 by the Catholic forces is often compared with the sack of Drogheda in 1649 by Protestant forces. Neither was unusual at the time.

Difficulties of the Spanish rulers in southern Italy led the Emperor to intervene to assist them. France therefore attacked Spain. Initially Richelieu had not much military success, but his intervention effectively bankrupted the Empire. (Wars usually came to an end when a king could no longer borrow money to finance the war at around 10% interest. The founding of the Bank of England in 1694 effectively allowed William III and Anne to outlast France.) As far as Germany and the Empire were concerned, the signal defeat of the Protestant army at Nordlingen in 1634 induced the North German princes to seek terms while Ferdinand softened his demands (Maland, 134). The war could have ended there, but France, Spain, and Sweden were not satisfied. France declared war on Spain. Wars and negotiations dragged on for 10 years until the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which excluded the war between France and Spain, was signed in 1648. Its most famous decision was to agree that each ruler had the right to decide the religion of his own state (Cuius regio ejus religio). France was allowed to keep the fortress of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, the latter to be the object of a famous defence in the First World War. The war between the now evenly matched French and Spanish armies continued until 1660, but the defeat of the Spanish army at Rocroi in 1643 marked the point when the military balance began to tip in favour of France. It was one of the few major defeats of a Spanish army in over a century. The slow decline of Spain, masked by the wealth of its overseas territories, commenced. After the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) Spain lost her territories in the Mediterranean, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. In the 19th century various rebel groups in